I’m fed up with talking about the weather, but I can console myself with the fact we have grabbed every opportunity so far and progress is not too bad.GM maize products creep nearer approval
TWO genetically modified maize products which can be freely grown around the world and imported into Europe for use in human food and animal feed, still cannot be cultivated in the EU.
However, they have taken a significant step towards approval for use by European farmers.
They are Bt-11 maize, engineered by Syngenta, and 1507 maize, jointly developed by Pioneer and Dow AgroSciences.
Yesterday (Wednesday, February 25), they became two of only a handful of products to make it to the final stages of the approval process since the first and only GM product – Monsanto’s MON 810 maize – was approved for cultivation in 1998.
Both maize products have been deemed safe to grow by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) but a split among the 27 EU member states on GMO policy has slowed their progress for approval to a snail’s pace.
This week, however, marked the first in what is likely to be a three-stage process to approval.
As was expected, the EU food chain committee, comprising member state scientists, failed to reach a qualified majority to approve or reject the two appli-cations when they voted yesterday.
The decision now rests with EU Ministers who are also likely to reach a stalemate.
If this happens, the European Commission is expected to issue standard 10-year licences to both GM products by default.
If the maize 1507 is finally approved for cultivation this year, it would mark eight years since its breeders’ initial application in 2001.
The average approval time for a GM product in the US is between 18 and 24 months.
Source:
Arable News
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